Lost: “Sundown”
Sundown, you better take care.
Spoilers from tonight’s episode, along with a bunch of other stuff, below.
Links and miscellanea
- I enjoyed these Lost Slapdown videos. (Warning: conspicuous Shake Shake advertising included.)
- The LA Times has a recap of a Lost panel at Paley Festival. MOst important bit: yes, we will get more information on the Hurley-bird. Other recaps can be read here, here and here.
- The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan asks the question: “When is wanting answers a bad thing? Or a good thing?” For the record, I share her equivocating approach.
- Ryan links to this introspective and skeptical post from Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik who has some doubts about who we’re supposed to be cheering. (“I do not so much care about two Island deities I met a half-dozen episodes ago who may not even be people in any strict sense of the word.”) Although I’m not as negative as Poniewozik, I did have a certain restless dread when Jacob and the Man-in-Black were introduced in the Season 5 finale, and I haven’t been able to shake it entirely. But, in the end, we may have to do what we’ve been doing for 5+ seasons now: trust the writers to tell a really good story.
- Here’s a nice blog post compiling some Lost-based fan art, some of which I’ve linked to before, but some that’s new.
- AOL TV has an interview with Emilie De Ravin about the emergence of Crazy Claire.
- USA Today has a quiz you can take to test your recall of last week’s episode.
Observations and speculations
- Sayid’s episodes tend to be dark, and this was no exception. His LA-X story was pretty stock film noir or western: the man trying to escape his past is called upon to use his learned skills one last time to protect the ones he loves from a greater evil. The Island storyline was more intriguing, and more morally ambivalent.
- You knew something was up when Sayid showed up at Nadia’s door and she was wearing a wedding ring. Nadia is with Sayid’s brother, Omer. The only other time Omer has appeared was in last season’s episode “He’s Our You,” where we learned about Sayid killed a chicken for his older brother when their father was angry at Omer for not doing it. Sayid, apparently, has a history of trying to get his brother out of trouble.
- LA-X Sayid tells Omer that he works “translating contracts for an oil company.” Pretty mundane work for Sayid, if in fact that’s his job. Omer, on the other hand, owns a dry cleaning business.
- Meanwhile, there’s a lot of unresolved tension between Sayid and Nadia, enough to make this family meeting extremely uncomfortable. When even the kids are picking up on the weird vibe, you know it’s palpable.
- The picture of Nadia that Sayid’s niece and nephew find is different than the one Sayid was carrying on Oceanic 815 when it crashed. In the original photo, Nadia is wearing a hijab. In the LA-X photo, Nadia is in Western dress, carrying what looks like a laptop.
- Back on the Island, Sayid gets confrontational with Dogen, resulting in one of Lost’s better fight scenes. Dogen tells Sayid that the machine/torture device is one that weighs the balance of good and evil in a person, similar to the scales we saw in Jacob’s sea cave.
- Dogen tells Sayid, “I think it would be best if you were dead,” yet Dogen appears to not be able to kill Sayid himself, only by proxy. Or perhaps he believes that if he kills a “candidate” it will prevent him from being able to return to Japan, or something will happen to his son. In any event, it seems that the baseball was what stopped Dogen from taking Sayid out.
- Cut to Crazy Claire and Not-Locke standing just outside the ash circle. Not-Locke sends Claire into the Temple to deliver a message. The ash circle still seems to be preventing him from entering at this point. Not-Locke has struck a (Faustian?) bargain with Claire—she’ll get Aaron back as long as she does what Not-Locke says. He tells her, “I always do what I say,” and though it sounds credible, there’s still an ominous tinge to his words.
- In LA-X, Omer reaches out to Sayid at 2:30 in the morning and tries to convince his brother to use some of his Sayid charm to get a loan shark to stop harassing him. Omer claims that he paid back all of the money he borrowed, but the criminal he borrowed from wants interest for as long as Omer owns the business. Omer tells Sayid, “I know what kind of man you are,” revisiting a theme that has run throughout Sayid’s storylines.
- Life inside the Temple is interesting. Stone benches everywhere in the courtyard, baskets filled with sweet potatoes, daikon radishes and mangos, and everyone barefoot and dressed in earth tones. Oh, and lots of guns.
- Is it just me, or is every single character using the exact same Boy Scout canteen this season?
- Miles tells Sayid, “You were dead, man. For two hours.” If anyone knows dead, it’s Miles. This revelation that it was not the Others, but something else, that brought Sayid back to life surely factored into Sayid’s decision to join Team Man-in-Black.
- When Claire arrives, Lennon tells the gunmen in the gunmen in the courtyard, “Stop, don’t shoot her.” Dogen instructs Lennon to put Claire in “the hole” until “this is resolved.” Despite everything, the Others do not attempt to kill Claire, just as they never really try to kill Sayid directly. I wonder why.
- Dogen describes the Man-in-Black as “an angry man” who was “for years, trapped, but now that Jacob’s gone, he’s free. This man will not stop until he has destroyed every living thing on this island.” Ben said the same thing about Widmore and his freighter folk at the end of season 3. In fact, we’ve heard it so many times, I’m starting to disbelieve it. According to Dogen, Not-Locke is “evil incarnate.”
- Dogen gives Sayid a metal dagger kept in a carved wooden box and hidden inside a planter. This seems to be all theatrics. I think Not-Locke is correct when he tells Sayid that Dogen knew all along that he couldn’t be killed and simply wanted Sayid to provoke his own death. Sayid, however, seems to be persuaded awfully easily to be an assassin. I guess it’s just his nature.
- Back in LA-X, Omer has been “mugged,” landing him in St. Sebastian Hospital for medical care. Jack makes a brief cameo as a surgeon walking down the hallway reading a chart.
- On the island, Kate runs into Sayid in the jungle. Kate’s always running into old friends in the jungle. (To be fair, Sayid just came from the Temple and that’s where she’s going, so this particular meet-up isn’t really that strange.) She’s carrying a pistol and hiking with her finger on the trigger. You’d think Kate would be practicing better gun safety than that.
- Miles makes the most of his scenes, even though his character doesn’t have much to do. I like how he describes Claire: “She just strolled in her, acting all weird. Still hot, though.”
- After Sayid plunges the metal dagger into Not-Locke, Not-Locke grimaces and pulls the blade out. “Now why’d you go and do that?” Notably, the dagger is not bloodied, neither is the front of Not-Locke. He’s a bloodless zombie, apparently.
- Not-Locke’s moral lesson for Sayid, “A guy tries to get someone to kill you once, shame on him. Twice, shame on you for getting talked into it so easily.”
- Not-Locke, “What if I told you you could have anything you want? What if I said you could have anything in the entire world?” In the moments that follow, it’s implied that Not-Locke is promising to somehow get Sayid back together with his dead lover, Nadia. Sayid enthusiastically embraces this possibility.
- LA-X Sayid understands that he’s not a good person, which is why he’s kept Nadia at a distance (yet close enough he can visit as an in-law). But he doesn’t “deserve” Nadia.
- The Man-in-Black’s message to the Temple Others: Jacob is dead. You are free and no longer have to stay here. The Man-in-Black is leaving the island forever, and those who want to go with him need to leave the Temple and join him, those who don’t, die.
- When Kate sees Claire in the hole, Claire is singing “Catch a Falling Star.” Remember that this is the song that Christian used to sing to her, and the song that she requested that her unborn child’s adoptive parents sing to her baby at night. Kate also sang it to Aaron during her Oceanic Six time.
- Crazy Claire is not happy to hear Kate talk about Aaron. A sane person would be relieved, but Claire is not sane.
- It’s interesting that there appear to be many Temple Others who are willing to abandon there sanctuary. Not all Others are loyal to Jacob and the cause. Some are more than willing to switch sides if it means survival. Even Cindy the flight attended is fleeing the castle. Note that Zach and Emma, the kids with Cindy, are carrying the teddy bear as they exit the Temple.
- It was nice to see Martin Keamy again playing the heavy, as he does so well. It seems for Keamy, both the Island timeline and the LA-X timeline lead to his death. When Sayid meets him and Keamy mentions his name, we see another of those vague deja vu looks on Sayid’s face, the kind that seem to pop up regularly in the sideways flashes.
- And, of course, inside Keamy’s walk-in refrigerator is none other than LA-X Jin. When we last saw him, Jin was having difficulty with the customs agents at LA-X because he failed to declare thousands of dollars in cash. Presumably, when we have the Sun-and-Jin episode, we’ll find out how he got from there to the gangster’s fridge.
- I’m glad that we got to know a little bit more about Dogen’s character before he died. Dogen, it seems, was somewhat conflicted about his situation. He felt guilt over the accident that nearly killed his son, but must have had some resentment for the exile that Jacob required of him.
- Dogen apparently played some role in keeping the Man-in -Black at bay, it wasn’t all the ash.
- Sayid drowning Dogen in the fountain was an interesting juxtaposition to Dogen holding Sayid under the water when he was first brought to the Temple.
- I didn’t feel that bad seeing Lennon go. With Dogen gone, Lennon didn’t serve much purpose.
- When Ben finds Sayid, the metal dagger is dripping with Lennon’s blood and Lennon and Dogen are lying face-down in the fountain. Ben doesn’t waste much time trying to convince Sayid to come with him. Ben: “There’s still time.” Sayid: “Not for me.” Sayid seems to have finally resolved the issue of whether he is a good person or not. And the answer is not.
- Ilana finds the secret exit to the Temple just in time to save herself, Lapidus, Sun and Miles. As I pointed out last week, the hieroglyph that she searches for means circle of protection. Certainly appropriate here.
- I wasn’t sure what to think of “Catch a Falling Star (reprise)” I don’t know if that was supposed to be part of the show’s score, or something that the characters could actually hear. Either way, it was sufficiently creepy. At the end of the episode, Sayid and Crazy Claire, along with a fair amount of Others and a very reluctant looking Kate are part of Team Smokie. The battle lines appear to be forming and people seem to be choosing sides.
- So far it looks like this. Team Smokie: Sawyer, Sayid, Claire. Team Jacob: Ilana, Hurley, Richard. Free agents: Sun, Ben, Jack, Lapidus. Team Smokie has to be the odds-on favorite at this point.
Yes, this one was pretty dark. The story is moving along briskly, as it must with only ten more episodes left before the finale.
Thoughts?
March 03, 2010 in Television | Comments (27)
Has anyone noticed that in the side flashes, the main character of the side flash runs into a conflicting other from a different side of the scale? Kate(good) runs into Claire(bad). Jack(good) runs into Locke(bad). Locke(bad) runs into Hurley(good). Sayid(bad) runs into jack and jin ( both good). I feel like the side flashes are setting up the war back on the island.
Comment by braddd — March 3, 2010 @ 1:16 am
Oh, man, that was such a good episode! After it finally closed, I just kept thinking, “Wow!” From the martial arts mayhem with Sayid and Drogen, Keamy, and the smoke monster returns…
I don’t know that we got many answers to questions, but it was such a thrill ride!
Comment by FHL — March 3, 2010 @ 1:50 am
Thanks BTD Greg – this is the first place I come the day after Lost, and there’s always so much food for thought here.
Given their reluctance to kill Claire, I think we now understand how Rousseau survived all these years.
It’s true that Sayid has been in constant struggle, and every time he tries to be a good guy, it’s way too easy for him to go back to his old ways. Remember how he tortured Sawyer then Ben, later became an assassin for Ben, and now all this. One of Lost’s more interesting achievements is making us cheer for an Iraqi torturer, no matter what he does.
Loved seeing Keamy again, although prefer him as a mercenary. Poor guy just can’t get a break with this crowd, but I’m hopeful we’ll see him again when we get to Jin’s story.
And thanks BTD Greg for the Lightfoot reference – add in Sayid’s next business trip and I’m happy to have a few shout outs to my hometown with this ep!
Comment by Jenny — March 3, 2010 @ 7:26 am
I think the surprise rescue by Ilana failed in it’s dramatic effect. I think it was somewhat mishandled.
I’m also not buying what’s happened to Ben’s character at this point. I don’t think the writers quite know what to do with him. I’m hoping he gets a proper sendoff.
Awesome fight scene by the way.
Comment by Tim J — March 3, 2010 @ 7:43 am
Looks like next week’s outing is going to be about Ben so that’s awesome. Could it be that bothe Claire and Crazy Frenchy survived because you can’t kill canaidates? Frenchy was on the list as well as Claire. Now we know Smokey killed Echo. Does this mean Smokey will kill canidates or that the big guy wasn’t a canidate? So where is Sawyer? Sitting in that Cave? I wonder if Jin was sent to do business with Keemy by his father-in-law.
Comment by Rose Tyler — March 3, 2010 @ 8:17 am
Rose, nearly everyone was a candidate at one time, no? Are we saying candidates are all people on the list? In that case, haven’t we already seen people on the list be killed by the Others? What about Charlie?
Comment by Laura — March 3, 2010 @ 11:12 am
I’m starting to wonder if MIB is Jacob’s son. There is some speculation that they are one and the same, sort of a Jekyll/Hyde thing, but I’m not so sure.
MIB acts like a discarded son. The oldest son who rejects going into the family business, but nevertheless is resentful of those his father brings in to do the job, because they become favoured.
MIB says he hates Jacob and eventually kills him, and yet Jacob doesn’t say anything like that, and looks at MIB in a way that is almost condescending. Reminds me a lot of Christian/Jack and Cooper/Locke.
I do find it odd that this character has never been named though, and wonder if there’s a significant reason for that.
Comment by Jenny — March 3, 2010 @ 11:59 am
Good solid episode. Not much to say, beyond I hope next week is a Jin episode.
Comment by Clark — March 3, 2010 @ 12:09 pm
so let me get this straight. You do a test that tells you whether a guy is evil or not. He fails the test. You do this test by force on him, and it’s a painful test. You try to have his most trusted friend poison him, and then you try to kill him, and then you try to send him out to your enemy in the hopes your enemy kills him and then you wonder why he just might be “evil?” All the while he is super nice to you.
All I gotta say is, well done Sayid. After all that, Dogen had it comin’.
Comment by Dan — March 3, 2010 @ 12:15 pm
Jenny, yes that would go along with all the other “daddy issues” Lost characters have. Interesting.
Comment by Darin H — March 3, 2010 @ 12:15 pm
How come not-locke could not be killed by Sayid but ben was able to kill Jacob??
Comment by Lex Loon — March 3, 2010 @ 12:20 pm
I don’t think it was just testing if he was evil or good, but how the water would affect him. Presumably it lines up with a lot of ancient mythic systems (and some quasi-modern like Swedenborg) where your soul is weighed and whatever inclination you balance towards (good or evil) then controls your soul.
So I think we’ll see Sayid going more nutso and evil as time goes on.
Comment by Clark — March 3, 2010 @ 12:45 pm
Clark, I was thinking the same thing, but didn’t mention it in my post. The whole thing reminds me of the “weighing of the heart” ceremony from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which I blogged about last season.
Jenny, you and I both. I’d love to have a name to call this character, rather than relying on a rotating number of nicknames. I also think it’s telling that MiB/Smokey/Not-Locke has at least twice been directly asked about his identity (Sawyer: “Who are you?”; Sayid: “What are you?”) and he’s evaded answering their questions directly. Similarly, when Dogen asks Claire who she’s talking about, she replies evasively, “You know who.” Which all leads us to believe that there must be some reason that the writers are keeping this information from us, perhaps as a lead up to some big reveal.
Comment by BTD Greg — March 3, 2010 @ 1:07 pm
Clark,
Dogen noted in the beginning that the water was discolored and was concerned the saving of Sayid would not necessarily work. Are you referring to that water, from the fountain? or some other?
And I was just saying that if you think someone is evil, do you make every effort possible to turn him evil when he is otherwise nice and friendly to you? I mean, you torture the guy, you try to have his trusted friend poison him, you try to kill him, you try to get the enemy to kill him, and then you expect him to still be nice to you?
Comment by Dan — March 3, 2010 @ 1:19 pm
“How come not-locke could not be killed by Sayid but ben was able to kill Jacob??”
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Locke’s body is already dead. Might be harder to kill something that can just borrow somebody else’s dead body. As far as we know, Jacob was in his original packaging.
Comment by Allison — March 3, 2010 @ 3:48 pm
The discussion between Sayid and Smokie reminded me of Ben’s magic box from the episode The Man from Tallahassee. I suspect their heading in a direction that will help explain that box and how Cooper got to the island.
Allison, he didn’t borrow Locke’s body, they buried that body last week.
Comment by Jacob J — March 3, 2010 @ 5:28 pm
Dan, they also suggested this had happened to Claire.
There was also the hint of this by Richard when Ben as a boy is saved at the behest of Kate. Richard says people sometimes come back changed.
We also have the change in Rousseau’s party members who come out of the temple attempting to kill her.
Exactly what is going on isn’t clear. Clearly there are some Rousseau – Claire parallels but there are also some differences. (Rousseau, so far as we know, never went in the temple for instance)
Regarding “expecting him to be nice” I think our Samurai friend was expecting his death. I should also note that I don’t think Jacob the nice guy and smokey the bad guy. It’s more complex than that. Jacob hasn’t exactly been nice either – remember that most of the crap the Others have done was at his behest.
Comment by Clark — March 3, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
Jacob J, okay, then, Smoky took the *appearance* of Locke’s dead body. Still seems plausible it’s harder to kill whatever-you’d-call-that (Locke’s form?) than a guy with an actual body.
Comment by Allison — March 3, 2010 @ 7:40 pm
Speaking of, I’d like to someday get some sort of explanation about why Locke’s body was necessary for Smoky. I get that it was useful in conning Ben into killing Jacob, but only because Smoky-in-the-form-of-Danielle had already told Ben to do whatever Locke told him. Why not permanently use the form of Danielle, or Christian, or whoever?
Comment by Allison — March 3, 2010 @ 7:44 pm
I’m not convinced the ghosts are smokey, although I think Christian was smokey. Remember the kid who appeared to smokey-Locke telling him he couldn’t kill him. (Who he couldn’t kill wasn’t clear – perhaps Sawyer, more likely someone else)
Comment by Clark — March 3, 2010 @ 9:09 pm
Allison, yea, the question is whether Smoky and Jacob were in a similar condition or not. Can Jacob shape shift? Does he sometimes wander the island as a cloud of white smoke? If not, then I think you’re onto something about why Ben could stab and kill Jacob but Sayid couldn’t kill Smoky.
I suspect he had to take Locke’s body because Terry O’Quinn is a great actor and the writers didn’t want to lose him.
Comment by Jacob J — March 4, 2010 @ 12:26 am
Smokey took Locke’s form because Richard and the Others were already looking to him as a leader, and that meant Smokey could get them to follow him and witness the death of Jacob. He knew he could manipulate Ben by first scaring him with the apparent return of Locke, then using that confusion to move in for the kill.
I think Ben could kill Jacob because he was human; Sayid could not kill Smokey because he is not.
Dogan could not kill Sayid not for physical reasons, but because spiritually he could not kill a candidate. Remember Ben’s rules in reference to Widmore having Alex killed? It’s physically possible, but not kosher if that makes sense.
Comment by Jenny — March 4, 2010 @ 11:42 am
Richard and the Others were looking to him as a leader because Smokey set that up. We just didn’t realize how Smokey was manipulating things at the time. Although in hindsight it is clear what was going on.
Both Smokey and Jacob are master manipulators who put Ben to shame.
Smokey was human at one time I believe.
Once again, I suggest people look at Shakespeare’s The Tempest which has long been one of the main influences on Lost. In Shakespeare Ariel is a spirit who Prospero rescued from a tree. Prospero controls Ariel by continually promising freedom. Prospero seeing that his brother is near raises a tempest to cause his brother to crash on the island. There is an other creature, Caliban, on the island who is the son of the witch that trapped Ariel. Caliban was originally treated as a son by Prospero but came to view Prospero as an usurper. Both come to dispise each other. Caliban, in the play, falls in with some drunkards from the shipwreck to create an ultimately futile rebellion.
The plot involves manipulations of various sorts, especially by Prospero. The groups of shipwreck victims are divided into two groups and originally think the others are dead.
At the end everyone is brought before Prespero who has Ariel send everyone home and then pardons Caliban and frees Ariel as well. At the end Prospero gives up his magic powers to become a normal human as well and leaves the island too.
It seems to me that Smokey is a combination of Caliban and Ariel.
Comment by Clark — March 4, 2010 @ 12:07 pm
Clark:
Intriguing.
But which one is Robby the Robot?
Comment by Mudhead — March 4, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
I don’t know on that. Forbidden Planet is a pretty lose adaptation. (As is Lost) I think the Forbidden Planet version is clearly an influence too. (i.e. the ID monster and Smokey are pretty much the same) Of course Forbidden Planet was much more psychological in its way – very Freudian.
Comment by Clark — March 5, 2010 @ 11:18 am
[Oops. I meant to post this here, not in that other thread]:
So, I had this bizarre dream about Lost that might sorta kinda be a theory/speculation for the LAX universe.
[Leaving out Megatron, Underdog, and Iron Man being on the Island], in my dream Jacob offered the Losties a chance to live in World where the Island never touched them. However, it’s a false construct, and overtime they all begin to realize it was a false reality. They came together in the false reality (in my dream this was much like the scene in BSG where four of the final five came together and realized they were Cylons) and saw it for what it was, and rejected it.
At that point in my dream, Jack used Excalibur to cut the Island in half, so the whole dream wasn’t exactly theory worthy, but that center part was.
Comment by Ivan — March 8, 2010 @ 4:47 pm
Reminds me the night after way too many diet Cokes when I dreamt Jack Bauer crashed on the island while transporting a prisoner for CTU and then the Others really find the tables turned.
Comment by Clark — March 8, 2010 @ 10:01 pm